22 m/o newphew bites other kids- SIL & MIL are requesting help

[klpmommy]

I really don't know what to tell them. I am not around him to know what is going on so I only hear stories & sometimes they are conflicting b/w my SIL & MIL. Also P&E were not biters so I have never had to deal with it before.

This is the email I got from her today with names removed for privacy

C bit
another kid. This past week was promotion Sunday (not to say that had an
affect on biting) We had another chit chat with Y - the Pre-school minister -
she told us to keep doing what we are doing. Get in C's face and with a stern
voice say this is a NO-NO! Please keep us and C in prayer with this entire
biting phase.

I know it could be related to teething, but this has been going on for months & months. When we saw them in March the first thing my SIL says is "he bites, be careful".

I appreciate any ideas & help. My SIL/BIL/MIL are not gentle but they tend to trust me it seems so I would love to be able to give them some help on this. Honestly, my SIL/BIL tend toward the permissive. :sigh Sometimes I wish I lived closer so that I could be more help.

[klpmommy]

I just got this email from my SIL thanking me for looking for ideas. :bheart

Thank for the emails. Thanks for checking around. We practice a stern NO NO!! This
is NOT acceptable behavior. We use time-out. T (my bil) has used hot sauce. And we
have both spanked (this does not work; also I don't want to spank too much)

Any new ideas would be great. The thing is he LOVES little kids. In fact you have seen
him around yours. He is very loving and wants to kiss and hug. He also wants to bite
and see what they taste like (!!!!)

[SweetMelissa]

I was just doing some searching on this, because a friend was asking me for advice about her 3 yo biting. I found some good articles that may be helpful:
http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/poptopics/biting.html
http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/linda_passmark.html

Other than that, I have little to no parent-of-biter experience, just parent-of-biting-victim experience. :yes2

[klpmommy]

thank you for the links. I know that they are really concerned about this b/c he has bitten a lot of kids- it is at least once a month I hear from my SIL/MIL that he bit someone else. And he is at home with my MIL or his other grandma, not in daycare or around other kids except on Sundays at church & the occassional Saturday "party".

[OpalsMom]

You'll find a *lot* of past threads if you search. The main gist is: biters are meeting needs they can't meet other ways. Meet those needs (which are usually two-fold, they need another way to express themselves and they need more oral stimulation), and also watch like a hawk because preventing biting is way more effective than reacting to it after the fact.

Daycare keeps a diary and records everything they can think about for biting or near biting incidents, and then reviews it with another teacher to see if they can find patterns.

DD is a sort-of biter. She bites me. Just me. Or herself. (This is I suppose good for all those kids she doesn't bite.) For her it's a symptom of a sort of transition madness; when things are too crazy for her, she loses her ability to restrain her desire to bite, and she bites me or herself. I've learned that when life is chaotic, chew toys are important! She's transitioning them to a new room at daycare, and I let them know that during transition times, she tends to look like a confident, perfectly adapted kid with this
weird thumb-sucking/chewing habit, and that if she is chewing on herself, I prefer for her to have a chew toy, which she will let go
of herself when the transition is done. It's not a permanent thing, it's a coping mechanism, and I'm OK with it.

[ArmsOfLove]

at 22 months he may have been teething for months. I would also increase his oral stimulation and stop punishing him for this (obviously ;) ). If children who feel bad act bad then increasing his anxiety will result in MORE biting, not less. He's way too young to get those punishments anyway--and hot sauce is dangerous :( They need to supervise much more closely and be a lot more casual about it--redirecting BEFORE he bites so that he doesn't retain this habit. They need to be able to see the patterns--is it for a child in his face? Teach him words or signs for "need space" or "that is mine" or to an adult for "need help".

[klpmommy]

I printed off some info for them to mail to them (they don't like to read off the computer screen so I think this will be more successful). The stuff from your site Crystal, Dr. Sears & one of the links from above. I also (esp after reading all of that) am going to tell her what *I* would do- keep a journal to see if I could find the triggers (other kids, stress, food, hunger, etc), be a lot more proactive at prevention, do more "attention" to the kid that got bit before giving it to C for biting. (I have had some success with this with P for hurting E in the past- giving attention to what I want rather than what I don't want). I really want to stress to her that they need to observe the triggers. But I have a feeling she is going to not want to do that since it is during church & she doesn't want to miss church, but all I can do is make suggestions.

I am just really sad about reading what they are doing to "stop" the biting. Obviously it isn't working and they are deep in the Bible belt so if one painful thing doesn't work try the next. :bheart SIL doesn't think that he is stressed by change (b/c she isn't) but my MIL does (b/c she is). And I just don't know. I am just so sad for him.